Tagged: Facebook phone

It’s not just a smart move, it is a brilliant move. Facebook brings back the glory of making software. While many large IT companies rushes to control both the software and the hardware as a way to dominate the market, Facebook is attempting to succeed by just being best at designing great software. In a way this is similar to what Microsoft has done through their partnership with Nokia, only at a grander scale. Google must be secretly brooding now. For a moment Google seemed to have it all, software and hardware together set in motion in a big wave overwhelming their long time foe, Apple. But here it is, the nightmare called Facebook is back on the front page. All that money poured into Android and Motorola hasn’t yet given any assurance that it will lead to world domination as planned.

The beauty of Facebook Home, as a concept as we don’t know how successful this is going to be, is its simplicity. Facebook created a social software layer on top of an entire ecosystem: Android operating system, hardware manufacturers, telecommunication networks and application developers. They have a phone, without having a phone. If there is someone else affected almost as much as Google is that must be Samsung. They have tried hard to build a services shop on their phone for some time, but with not much success. The media still calls the Samsung branded software applications ‘bloat ware’. And here it is, Facebook just comes along and in one swoop they capture the attention of all those eyeballs. At least what they hope they will do.

The move is brilliant, but it doesn’t guarantee success. Facebook desktop attraction started to lose some of its lustre and consumers have cooled off a bit. It will be interesting to see how the consumer will feel when Facebook is in their face all the time. Mark Zuckerberg describe Facebook Home as “highest quality experience you can have on Android“. If this is true, then the chances of broad adoption are greatly enhanced, but if not, the brand might suffer. The highest risk for Facebook is that although this move is brilliant, it may be too brilliant for their own good. Users may feel Facebook is too much into their lives. Success could irritate because by occupying the space in a dominant way it causes resentment. We have to wait and see.

It Facebook is successful, this may lead to the demise of good old phone number system. Instead of calling your friends using the telephone system, you just talk to your friends using the Facebook voice or video chat. Your Facebook ID could well be your next phone number.